Body Heat
by MaybeWeAre
Summary: <html><head></head>Freezing to death and running out of options, Emma reaches out to Regina through their magic. Based on "White Out," just a little bitty pre-SQ one-shot.</html>


It was freezing when Regina woke up, and while she knew that the blackout had cut the heat off it still seemed odd. It was as though she didn't have a pile of blankets tucked around her. Her hands were beneath the covers but they were almost painfully cold. She rubbed them together, glancing around the room.

Someone had spoken her name to wake her, but there was no one else in the room. Her phone was still turned off as part of her effort to avoid contact with the outside world.

_Regina._

It wasn't a voice, not a real one, she realized. It was sounding in the back of her mind, and she felt a twinge of very familiar magic. _Miss Swan,_ she thought back across a connection she'd never known they had. _I thought you'd get the hint when I didn't answer any of your phone calls. Did you really need to resort to invading my thoughts?_

_Regina._ The whisper in her head was smaller this time, fainter. _Please._

Regina frowned at the sudden weakness in Emma's voice. _Please what?_

_Please, Regina. Cold. Help. Help me._

The last thing Regina wanted to do was leave the house, especially at 2 am. Especially when she had unwashed hair and no makeup and was obviously a wreck. Especially when she was going to see the person whose fault it all was.

But she couldn't ignore Emma's words, even after they stopped coming. She summoned two coats from her downstairs closet and slipped into one, bracing herself for the cold Emma had given her a taste of. "Emma," she whispered aloud as she put on her gloves and focused on the pull the blonde still had on her even now that she'd gone silent.

In a swirl of purple, Regina vanished from her room and reappeared in what appeared to be a room of ice. In the pale blue light, she caught sight of two blondes. One, the one she'd never seen before, was pacing back and forth, a flurry of snow following her.

The other was on the floor, shaking harder than Regina had ever imagined a human could. "Emma," Regina whispered again, staring at the ashen skin, the colorless lips, the hands curled into useless fists against her chest. "Emma!" she said louder, her voice echoing against the ice.

Emma's eyes stayed shut, her body moving seemingly without her control, and said nothing.

Regina was on her knees in an instant, ignoring the cold seeping through her pajama pants as she threw the extra coat over Emma.

"Who are you?" the strange woman asked, but Regina held up a hand to silence her. It was clear, from the way the snow seemed to rage along with the other blonde's anxiety, that this stranger was responsible for this, for Emma. In another time, Regina probably would have slammed the woman against the ice in her anger, but there was no time for anger now. Not when Emma was fading like this. Regina wasn't about to waste a second or an ounce of her magic.

She peeled off her gloves and took Emma's hands in hers, gently uncurling the stiff fingers. Regina imagined making a fireball, letting the magic and heat flow to her hands but cutting it off before she could singe Emma. Her hands glowed with warmth, and she let it slowly seep into Emma's skin. Once the hands seemed more or less all right, Regina stuffed them sloppily into her discarded gloves and pulled Emma closer, almost into her lap.

"Can you get us out of here?" the stranger asked, and Regina glanced around, cradling Emma tight against her. There was no evident way out, and Regina was fairly sure that Emma wasn't stupid enough to remain in a freezing room if there was an exit. She could melt the ice, certainly, but that would mean wasting heat that Emma desperately needed.

"Come here," she barked, and the woman reluctantly came closer. "Hold onto me," she ordered, and as soon as she felt a hand grasp her shoulder she whisked them back to her bedroom. The stranger was still flurrying, and Regina ordered her to leave, ignoring her whimpering about how she never meant to hurt anybody.

Regina quickly piled the blankets over both Emma and herself, hoping to trap in her own body heat, and raised a hand to brush a few strands of hair out of Emma's still-closed eyes. She cradled Emma against her, one hand to the blonde's lower back and one against her cheek, and infused her with warmth once again.

"Please, Emma," she said, running a thumb over chapped lips that were slowly starting to regain their normal color. "Stay with me."

Emma had at least stopped shaking so hard, allowing Regina to hold her more steadily. She was beginning to tire from the amount of magic she'd pumped into the blonde, but she kept going, all the while thinking of other ways. Weren't you supposed to strip naked with the freezing person and curl up against her? Any other day, Regina would have hated herself for even entertaining that thought, but today she was pretty sure that she'd go to any length to save the Savior.

_Emma,_ she thought, imagining the words traveling down through her fingertips and seeping into Emma. _Wake up, Emma. Come back to me._

No response, not in Regina's mind and not aloud. Regina bent down, pressing her lips to Emma's cheek and hardly noticing when the blonde's eyes fluttered open.

"Regina?"

It was hardly more than a croak, and Regina took her lips away from Emma's cold skin to see her staring blearily up at her. "I'm here," she promised. "I'm here."

Emma moved beneath the blankets, rubbing her hands together and curling her legs even closer to Regina. "Didn't think you'd come," she murmured. "Still hate me?"

Regina shushed her, sending one last wave of warmth into Emma before letting body heat and blankets take over the work. "I didn't hate you."

Emma made a grumbly noise like she didn't believe it.

"I mean it," Regina said. "I would be quite disappointed if you froze to death out there."

Emma smiled at "quite disappointed," cuddling closer to Regina. The brunette held her tightly, as if there was no way she was ever letting to, as if she would be considerably more than disappointed. "I wanted you," she said softly into the collar of Regina's coat. "And you found me."

"I heard you."

"How?"

Regina pursed her lips together. She wasn't quite sure, beyond the fact that their magic seemed to intertwine in a way she'd never heard of before. "Just rest," she whispered, and for once Emma shut up and listened.


End file.
